http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/feb/20/kisses-from-colorado/

I see Company’s shop states ALL THE TIME for the most business friendly environments.

Avinach_Tyagi, unfortunately that’s a gross mischaracterization of what happened in WWII. When that war kicked off (in Europe) in ’39, the U.S. was selling vast quantities of U.S.-made war materials too all the anti-axis powers: Russia, France, Great Britain, etc. We also were selling millions of barrels of oil to Japan, by the way.

It was fundamentally different from a stimulus, in that we weren’t borrowing money to pay for things there was no demand for. Half of everything manufactured in the world came from the United States, and it fulfilled a HUGE demand for those products. Great Britain alone, spent herself into poverty buying ships, vehicles & armaments.

And we didn’t start to run deficits until we joined the war in ’41.

Today, we are simply creating new dollars out of thin air, and selling them to foreign countries. Once they figure out that our economy is nothing more than a big ponzi scheme, they’re going to stop buying that dollar-denominated debt. Sounds like they’re starting to figure it out: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123692233477317069.html

And that’s when the party is going to end.

There is never a poor time to make a stand against earmarks if your goal is honest and accountable governing.

Sure, if that’s your only or primary goal. Unfortunately for the president, he has to juggle many, many goals, some of them even conflicting goals. And he always has to keep an eye on the amount of political capital he has in his tank. So it’s pretty clear that the simplistic contention that there’s never a bad time fails to speak to the rather obvious point that some times are still better than other times.

You know what the primary purpose of this bill WAS, right? It was to provide money for the government to operate. It makes a TON of sense to me that Obama chose not to take on congress on this issue right now. Had he done so by something such as a veto, the gov’t funding bill would not have passed in a timely fashion, the government would have faced shut downs over the lack of funding. And across the spectrum, critics would have pointed out what a BAD time it was for such a showdown, given both the various ambitious initiatives the new admin is trying to get off the ground and the fact that the new President is still basically getting all his shiznit together, assembling teams, familiarizing himself with various gov’t mechanics, and so on.

There have always been tax expats. Until recently many were touting Ireland for its pro-business tax policy. Sadly, Ireland has fallen and can’t get up.

Companies stay in the US for the same reason that the Chinese and the Saudis keep their money in dollars: we may be f***ed up, but we’re less f***ed up than most countries, whatever their tax rates.

Even here in the US you see huge disparities in tax rates. CA has very high income taxes, TX has no state income tax. I’m not seeing Apple, Sony Pictures, Wells Fargo and Google decamping to Texas.

Put a fork in this guy. He’s done.

It’s a puff piece put out by the Swiss to do damage control over the loss of secrecy issue. It’s vapor.

wow. what were the odds of that conclusion?

What I am upset about in regard to Obama’s actions so far are things he does have control over. Namely, earmarks. I respectfully disagree with kk that “now was a poor time for a timely and contentious fight over earmarks”. There is never a poor time to make a stand against earmarks if your goal is honest and accountable governing. Earmarks are a disgrace — that they have been a part of federal fiscal budgeting this long is a slap in the face to taxpayers, and Obama should have stood by his campaign promise to eradicate them, and he should have done so immediately.

I wish I could buy the defense that, and I’m paraphrasing,”this was the last administration’s budget” and “it will be different when it’s Obama’s budget from the inception”. You’ve got the veto, and I can’t think of a better way to use the veto than to strike down pet projects. To me it smacks of the worst sort of business-as-usual. And it is especially because of the financial crisis we are in now that the earmarks should have been ripped out of the federal budget.

Not dispositive, but interesting straws in the wind.

Way too early to start losing hope and deciding that Obama’s failed. I mean, Jesus, we gave Bush a lot longer than this on Iraq.

The concern over leftist agenda stuff and earmarks is misplaced, first off the key is can they generate jobs and spending, and for nearly all the things, the answer is a resounding yes. Arguments of focus and trying to do too much is misplaced as well, in the past it hasn’t been scale of initiatives, but rather an inability to work with congress, even if only your party, that has sunk early presidential initiatives, Carter and Clinton failed by not including congress in their plans, and as a result nothing resulted, Obama has kept congress in the loop, even let them spearhead initiatives, which is good, as long as he and congress work together, things will pass.

Also the right of center can’t complain, Obama tried to reach out in his early days and was slapped away, now he’s going in his own direction, they have only themselves to blame

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssEnergyNews/idUSL312427120090312?feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssEnergyNews&rpc=22

Ah, what’s a few points to the tax rate really hurt?

It’s at least possible that the near-unanimity of the GOP in opposing some actions has fostered Obama’s willingness to try and keep democrats on board so that things can get done quickly, instead of having all sorts of initiatives jammed up in food fights. For example , witness his willingness to sign the recent govt appropriations bill with the earmarks in it.

My sense (and my hope) is that Obama could see that now was a poor time for a timely and contentious fight over earmarks. So he’s gone ahead and said, OK, I’ll let this one go, but we’ll all have to get together and at least rationalize the process for future budgets. I’m OK with that for now. But I am 100% ready to keep score as far as whether he’s really prepared to make an issue of this, instead of just kicking the can down the road.